How to prevent your IoT devices from being forced into botnet bondage
L33tdawg: On an unrelated note, if you're in Singapore next week and interested in IoT honeypots, you might want to attend this #HITBGSEC CommSec talk.
A Delaware-headquartered brick-and-mortar jewelry store recently lost access to its online resources after subduing a major, multi-staged DDoS attack — the sort of hack that brings down your server by burdening it with huge amounts of simultaneous requests.
DDoS attacks are nothing new, but DDoS attacks powered exclusively by IoT devices are. The main culprit behind this particular attack was a botnet of 25,000 compromised CCTV cameras, armed with high-bandwidth connectivity and scattered across the world.
The rise of IoT botnets was predicted as one of the cybersecurity trends of 2016, and the technical details behind the Delaware jewelry episode are another reminder of how dangerous IoT botnets can be. With more and more unguarded IoT devices becoming connected to the internet every day, malicious bot lords are having an easier time conscripting new recruits into their undyingly loyal armies of zombie machines — and their next target can be your smart fridge, light bulb, kettle or door lock.
